The best new movies on Netflix in August 2014

Happy August, readers! We know you're probably kicking back on the beach, cozying up with a sandy paperback, or flipping the digital ink on your e-reader. But what'll you do when nighttime rolls around or the humidity brings on one of those flash-flood thunderstorms? Thank heavens for NETFLIX! The popular streaming service has just released the list of movies and TV shows that will be available during the month of August, and there's plenty here to keep you occupied in the last of the dog days. Time Out New York's Film team recommends the following titles:

Mad Max (1979): Mel Gibson kills the “Nightrider” (no, not David Hasselhoff) and suffers the consequences in postapocalyptic Australia. George Miller crafted an end-times version of Death Wish with this vigilante flick, and paved the way for many a dystopian film to come, including his own The Road Warrior (1981).

Nymphomaniac: Volume I & Volume II (2013):Lars von Trier's latest provocation is a doozy—a four-hour-plus character study of a sex addict (Charlotte Gainsbourg) who recalls her many raunchy escapades to a kindly confessor (Stellan Skarsgård). You'll even get to see embattled actor Shia LaBeouf in LaBuff! (Sorry.)

The Killing: Season 4 (2014): See how things wrap up for detectives Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos) and Stephen Holder (Joel Kinnaman) in the six-episode final season of the love-it-or-hate-it crime series, given a new lease on life by Netflix.

Rocky (1976): All hail the reigning champion of modern sports-underdog stories, in which a Philly bruiser gets a shot at the title (as opposed to, say, a one-way ticket to Palookaville).

The Birdcage (1996): This pastel-colored updating of La Cage aux Folles, relocated to South Beach, Miami with Nathan Lane and Robin Williams as the amusingly histrionic gay lovers, is almost too much of a good thing.

The Cable Guy (1996): Ben Stiller's dark, homoerotic comedy about a needy TV installer pretty much scared the shit out of Jim Carrey’s fans, accustomed as they were to more benign rubbery-faced fare. We wish he’d be this daring more often.

And here’s the full list of what’s coming to Netflix streaming in August: